Psoroma asperellum
Description : Flora (1985: 468–479).
Chemistry : TLC−, all reactions negative.
N: South Auckland (Mt Maungatawhiri Coromandel Peninsula, Mangaotaki Stream near Pio Pio, Waiotapu near Rotorua), Wellington (York Bay). S: Nelson (St Arnaud Ra., Travers Valley, Maruia Valley), Westland (Aorangi Reserve near Greymouth, Mt McFarlane), Canterbury (Arthur's Pass, Alford Forest, Otepatoto Reserve Banks Peninsula, Waihi Gorge), Otago (Ocean Peak), Southland (Secretary I., Lake Monowai, Longwood Ra., Riverton). St: (Ulva I., Port Pegasus). Characteristically overgrowing mosses in damp, humid sites in lowland, mainly coastal forest, rarely on soil inland. Known also from SE Australia, Tasmania and Marion I. (Kantvilas 1990c; Øvstedal & Gremmen 2001; McCarthy 2003c, 2006). Earlier reports of the type of this species being from Table Mountain at the Cape of Good Hope (Nylander 1863; Galloway 1985a: 469; Jørgensen & Galloway (1992b: 280) are very likely in error and in fact most probably refer to "Montis Tabularis" or Mt Wellington in Tasmania (see Groves & Moore 1989: 80).
Australasian
Illustrations : Malcolm & Galloway (1997: 166, 175); Kantvilas & Jarman (1999: 126); Malcolm & Malcolm (2000: 7).
Psoroma asperellum is characterised by: the muscicolous habit; the delicately squamulose thallus, the squamules markedly ascending from a thin to thick, black basal prothallus; the blue-grey, placodioid or minutely to deeply lobed cephalodia; the prominent, scattered yellow-orange to pale red-brown apothecial discs with crenulate to subsquamulose margins; and fusiform-ellipsoidal ascospores, 12–25 × 8–10 μm. It is related to P. coralloideum (q.v.)
